Welcome - Our Western Link 2 Project
Published on June 23, 2026
About the project
Western Link 2 will transport electricity via a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) subsea cable from Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland, to a landfall location on the Gwynedd coastline.
From there, underground HVDC cables would route and connect to a proposed converter station near Pentir substation. The new converter station would then be connected to National
Grid’s existing Pentir substation via a new High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) cable connection.
The project is being jointly developed by National Grid and Scottish Power Energy Networks
(SPEN), with each company responsible for different elements of the Project.
For this consultation we are asking for your views on the Welsh elements of the Project only. SPEN is responsible for the Scottish elements of the Project and carried out its first consultation in November 2025.
At this stage we are looking for your feedback on the following onshore and offshore elements of the project:
- approximately 195 km of new offshore HVDC cable, starting from the southern limit of Scottish territorial seas to the limit of Welsh nearshore area
- approximately 65 km of new HVDC cable, within the Welsh nearshore area to a new underground transition joint bay at a landfall location on the Gwynedd coastline, at Caernarfon Bay
- a new underground transition joint bay at a location on the Gwynedd coastline, at Caernarfon Bay, where the new offshore HVDC cable will connect to the new onshore HVDC cable
- three options for potential landfall locations on the Gwynedd coastline (with one emerging preferred option identified)
- a new underground HVDC cable route of approximately 25 km from a landfall location on the Gwynedd coastline to a new converter station (presented as a ‘graduated swathe’ with the darker shaded area showing our preferred emerging cable route)
- two siting zone options for a new converter station in close proximity to the existing Pentir substation (with an emerging preference for Pentir East zone), including a new short length of underground HVAC cable connection from the converter station to the existing Pentir substation
- an extension to the existing Pentir substation, for the purposes of connecting Western Link 2 to the existing transmission network in Wales.
At this stage, we are presenting preferred options for the cable route, landfall location and
converter station siting zone, presented as a ‘graduated swathe’ with the darker shaded area showing our preferred emerging options based on the work we have undertaken to date.
We are also interested in hearing about:
- local features or areas that are important to you and which could be affected by our proposals
- whether there is anything else we should consider as we develop our proposals further.
Following this consultation, we will carefully consider all the feedback received. This feedback,
alongside technical assessments and environmental surveys, will help us refine our proposals. We will then hold a second, statutory Stage 2 consultation, where we will present more developed proposals for Western Link 2.